holy week

Palm Sunday was a bit strange this year. The weather took a sharp turn colder, and as we gathered in the Lemler garden and processed into the church, I felt like we were less celebrating than forcing ourselves through the moment, as if we were walking in waist high water.

But then again, for me, it could have been the reflection of Christ's passion in the Gospel -- am I the only person in the ECUSA who doesn't enjoy the group reading that we often do with that passage, where Jesus, the Evangelist (or Gospel writer) and the other persons mentioned in the passage read their lines like a play, and the congregation takes on the voice of the crowd, yelling "crucify him"?

It could be the sadness of the world -- pray for the peace of Jerusalem, a recurring text in scripture, and an apt reminder of humankind's perpetual state of war, is never more needed, for the actual Jerusalem, and for the entire world.

Our church is going through civil war, and while we are all sides joined together by faith (or lack of it) and buildings, we don't seem to like each other very much. It feels as if the arguments get reduced to my bishops are good guys and ladies, and yours are the baddies. Get out of my sight.

Palm Sunday is about honoring King Jesus (blessed is He who cometh in the name of the Lord), but 2100 years later, we know that even as he rode the donkey into Jerusalem, he would shortly suffer a violent death. Jesus often told his followers about how his kingdom contradicted their assumptions of what it would or should be. We're just as perplexed as they were.

Perhaps at the end of Advent or Lent, we should experience an uneasiness and unsettling. The choir goes into an extended period of work now, and yes, rehearsals are often the moments of worship and reflection. By the second service on Easter, I will be tired. Others, too, I'm sure.

That's where I am in this Holy Week.